I believe that you misunderstand the argument here. "The idea"
is not ascii formatting, it's the particular type of ascii formatting.
Markdown tries to take advantage of existing methods of ascii formatting
found in mail and usenet news, and tries to avoid lunging off into
apl-style symbol soup for markup.

It's a considerable bonus that Mr. Gruber isn't constantly tweaking
the language definition, and users who start using markdown *now* will
still be able to use it two years down the line w/o having to retrain
themselves.

> but if all of you implementers got yourselves _around_ a table and

> decided to develop "markaround" to go _around_ gruber, you could.

You mean like the way there's a common extension for definition
lists? Or like there's a common extension for tables? I'm not
sure just what you're arguing against or for, unless it's the tyranny
of sticking to a standard.

> and once again, none of this is a dig. i haven't shared my own z.m.l.

> with the world because i want to retain control over it,

I had a vanity markup language once, too. I'm happier using one
that
can be found elsewhere; The markdown that I find on iOS apps is the
markdown I find on Github is the markdown I find on Reddit is the
markdown I find on my own web pages.